Rafael Lujan de Cordoba

Rafael Lujan de Cordoba (1755-1826) was a Spanish colonial administrator from Bolivia who fought in the South American Wars of Liberation. He was defeated in his invasion of northern Argentina in 1814 at the Battle of Reconquista Heights by Jose de San Martin's army.

Biography
Rafael Lujan de Cordoba was born in the city of Cordoba, Spain, to a father from Huesca and a mother from Cordoba. In 1770 he was sent to the Spanish office in La Paz, Bolivia, as a public cervant but later became the assistant administrator of Cochabamba. In this post he maintained public order, but in 1808 he began to deal with riots by pro-Bourbon rebels, who wanted to rebel against the new Spanish government of Napoleon.

Lujan was promoted to Major General in the Spanish Army in the absentia of the Spanish government and he led a royalist invasion of northern Argentina (under the control of the United Province of the Rio de la Plata) in 1814. At the Battle of Reconquista Heights, however, his army was repelled and the invasion defeated. Lujan was captured by Argentinian troops in 1815 and he was held in prison until Argentina was granted independence in 1816. He died in Seville in 1826.